Reasons Why Windows Is Not Ready for Desktop

For some power users this might matter, but as far as I can tell most baseline laptops you can get with Windows offer more than enough storage.

I personally don't want all of that stuff pre-installed, because I won't use most of it. I have no need for flash anymore. I rarely need an office suite, but when I do, I just use Google Docs. The same goes for a mail client: Gmail.com is fine. I do install Chrome (which handles PDFs, so no need to install Adobe Reader), but Internet Explorer isn't that bad anymore. Also, all of that stuff is free (or has free alternatives), so I don't know where the author came up with the "couple of hundred bucks" figure.

> Even if you are tech-savvy, careful what you install kind of person that doesn’t just blindly install new software (by clicking next->next), you’ll end up with some crap like a new toolbar in your Firefox/Chrome from time to time and you’ll have to scan your system with some antivirus software from time to time. But, keep in mind that installing antiviruses might get you some crapware too, (AVG toolbar, I’m talking about you!) so what will you do then?

Really? Because I consider myself quite tech-savy and have never had a single toolbar installed without my knowledge. As for antivirus software, Microsoft Security Essentials is very good and doesn't install any extra crapware. It's even built-in on Windows 8 and later, so there's another thing you don't have to install yourself.

> You want to play something really old like DOS games? Well, too fucking bad.

DOSBox, which you would also have to install on Linux if you wanted to play old DOS games.

> All I have to do is to download Visual Studio Community edition. After all, it is free and it requires “only” additional 20 fucking gigabytes of disk space! Yay!

You also get what many consider to be the best IDE available. For free. Yay!

There's not really much point in arguing with people who only take name-brand operating systems and software seriously. They'll always mask their elitism by feigning concern for so-called "ordinary users" or complain about the absence of some specific proprietary software package that they only had access to before by submitting to vendor lock-in.

I don't think there's one magical OS that's for everyone. Or one specific UI implementation or paradigm that is perfect for everyone. Yes, there have been strides in making Linux DEs that are approachable for people familiar with Windows but Linux (and Unix-like OSes as a whole, but particularly Linux) has value beyond being an alternative to any another OS.

When I first started using computers there was no "easy mode".. a large proportion of my early time spent using a computer was spent learning about how that computer worked by exploration. There's still no "easy mode", if you haven't learned how to learn about how systems work.. you won't be able to troubleshoot any problems that may arise nor do anything you haven't already been taught how to do.

"Easy enough for everyone to use." is a slogan about sales volume. I think there are definitely Linux configurations that have those aspirations and are no further away from nor any closer to achieving them than Windows or OSX is. The value of Linux isn't to be a clone or replacement for another OS. The value of Linux is that it is extremely learnable for people who are interested in computing and people who want to make their own choices about their software environment.

The common complaints people make about "I had to use a CLI." or "I didn't want to learn anything." or "There were problems." are pretty irrelevant. In days past you always had to use a CLI, you always had to learn things, and there were always problems.

The cursor in the shell is a question. It's the system asking you what you want it to do. It's not trying to entice you with shiny icons. Every time I read that question, I have to think about it, and sometimes when I'm not working on anything in particular an open terminal window can provide hours of entertainment and education.

Not everyone thinks the same way. (I, for example, cannot keep my computer orderly with a graphical file manager. I just can't. I can reason about a written inventory of what I have but I can't find anything in my closet.) Not everyone is going to do the same things.

I don't know why people would damn a system with a completely different paradigm instead of just saying "It's not for me."

I also don't know why anyone would fire up the most educational operating system that exists (my opinion, but I think it's a big part of the reason that Linux is popular where it's popular.. because at a certain level it is very easy to use (where use overlaps with learning heavily; such as solving hard problems)) if they didn't want to learn anything.